Life, love and living

Many, many years ago, a sage was meditating on a Himalayan peak. Majestic dales and solitary vales sprawled around were all aglow with the divine streak.

Though the birds chirped songs, and rain poured down in throngs, he was unmovable, lost in a deep trance.

In winters, icy cold storms blew and the snow around and over him was all aglow with its chilling primitiveness. His soul but was safe somewhere in the cosy warmth of transcendental realisation.

In autumn, wind-fallen leaves sailed down with slumberous tumble, and ripe fruits fell proudly, adventurously for a juicy, pleasant crumble. He still was somewhere else when the nature opened these marvellous jewels from her treasure trove.

In spring, wild flowers fully unfurled their fragrance and smile, and honey-bees engaged in dawn to dusk toil. He but was unmoved and transported into a state where the ecstasies of natural bounties don’t mean anything anymore.

Summer’s warm days sprayed desultory, eerie uneasiness around, and cool nights proudly embraced this son with his soul heaven-bound. Still it didn’t matter. He was undisturbed and was silently moving on his meditative path.

Once it was a full moon autumn night. A fairy was flying amid milky delight. A perfect calmness pervaded the solitary vales. Everything was asleep, bathed in the softest fluffy shades of white. The fairy flew low over the peaks glowing under the moonlight. The seer was lost in his trance in front of his cave, the beauty of nature sprawled around meaningless to him.

She saw him and hovered around the sanctimonious air of his sagehood. A small, harmless mischief rustled in her young, innocent heart. She circled in the air above him. Her laughter touched the milky sea around and created soft ripples. Her unbelievably soft dress rustled in the gentle breeze born of her circles. It but did not have any effect on him. He was engrossed too deep in the cosmic balance beyond the sensory contradictions and dualities. The more she looked, the more was the urge in her to bring him back to the beauty of this world, to fetch him from the deep ocean where his soul had dived.

His exquisitely masculine physique and persona created tempted sparks on her magic stick. She tried all juicily leering feminine tricks. But her desire-lorn swirls in the air failed to move him even a bit. Helplessly she descended onto the earth. There were almost tears of helplessness in her beautiful eyes. She sat in front of him with those rose-red lips pursed in a heart-breaking frown.

Her marvellous eyes were lost in his handsome, bearded, well sculpted face. It was mesmerizing. There was not a single worldly trace on his face. She herself was caught in a trance and lost the sense of time and the laws of the fairyland. The night sped away as if in a jiffy.

The day rose. The sun arrived with full earthly delight. There was terror in her eyes. The hope to return to her realm died. She had broken the law of her land by not returning on the same night after the brief terrestrial sojourn. The realisation crashed against her soft self like a thunderbolt. Her utmost sensuous bare shoulders heaved under the tremors of this unpardonable fault. A cry involuntarily tore through her slender throat. And then it was a still bigger violation.

His serenely flowing meditative phrase met this sinful, full-stopping dot. His communion with the divinity was broken. His long-closed eyes opened. The world of his penance lay scattered. His fiercely burning eyes stared at the flower in sobs and sighs. Her large, flooded eyes pleaded for mercy. But the fire in his unforgiving eyes was unrelenting and cursing.

The fabric of his serenity was torn. The sage thundered, “You proud, vain woman of egoistic beauty, become an ugly bush of thorns!”

Mowed down by the spell of his cursing energy, an ugly bush stood in place of that angelic beauty. All shaken and ravaged, he left the place. A thorny branch, meanwhile, got entangled in his loin cloth, as if for meek, pleading forgiveness and brace. He but scornfully jerked it apart and headed to some other place for a new start.

Time then took to its heels on swift horses. The seasons changed. The spring’s colourful patterns were rearranged. The summer’s warm kisses melted the snows. The autumn’s harvest uncomplainingly fell to the air’s chiding blows. The winter’s snowy blanket covered the peaks. And rains lashed down in stormy freaks.

This pleasant wavering of nature, however, couldn’t shake the sage from the meditative maze high there in the hills. Faraway down the hills, the accursed bush was shrouded in thorny haze. It struggled to sprout fruits and flowers. Even cursing has a testing time against soft, innocent glow of purity. How can something having a fairy core remain ugly and thorny for too long? Her pure soul entombed in that thorny shrine prayed for penance. And see, a flower of her fruits sprouts forth!

A flower blossomed among the thorns. So beautiful! It lit up with life among the thorns and deadly pale dark brown branches. It appeared juxtaposed by a miracle, like it had dropped from the heaven and got stuck there. It was the day when the enlightened sage arrived from the north. Contented with his cosmic realisation, he came down the beautiful dale. As he passed the bush, his purified soul sensed the thorny shrub’s plaintive wail. His feet disobeyed him and he couldn’t move. The lone flower among the thorns fell at his feet in holy-most obeisance and greet. He picked it up and was lost in its fragrance.

The thorn was ugly. The flower so beautiful and fragrant! What contradiction! Flowery heaven and thorny hell together! The latter born of his cursing condemnation; the flower born of the beauty behind the thorny bars. It was a jolting earthly realisation. Hadn’t he broken the beautifully set laws?

Torrents of repentance cut through him. He bid penance at the altar for a long time. His repenting self set around a reformative shrine. His soul drenched in painful chime. He braced the thorns with the love and affection purest of the pure. It gave him bleeding fingers so many times. He caressed and cared for it like it was the beautiful most flowery shrub. He was practicing his penance now, of love, of surrender, of repentance. What else can be bigger than these?

When his soul had been salvaged of the sin, nobody could bet against her for a win. There she blossomed in front of him. Beauty, charm and grace filled to the brim. Her smile was forgetting and forgiving. It was the beacon of her penance, of love, of beauty. Inside the stony walls of his heart, a new luminosity was now thriving. The sage embraced her. She, who had been separated from her loved ones, got the earthling she had fallen for. Happiness, bliss and calm opened a new door to the start of a fresh cycle of life, love and humanity.

All but the sage had been extinguished by the cataclysm. The lone and forlorn survivor, he had been striking at the doors of heaven with his endless questions. Now there was no more pursuit. The endless had manifested itself in a small sip of love. Now they lived as a man and a woman. New hopes, aspirations and offspring began to thrive.

Thus were sown the seeds of another spell and cycle of life, of creation. Their unchecked love in those flowery vales left countless exotic trails. Gurgling brooks gave company to her primordially sensuous laughter. His instinct’s procreating sprouts mingled with the mirthful waters of her receptiveness.

The pregnant baby

It’s an effort to pass it off as a mall in this town of Haryana, even though it is no more than a street urchin is not a self-sustaining, mature confident young man. Delhi isn’t too far, and almost everybody, to whom the issues like malls matter, especially the teenagers and young adults, has been, one time or the other, to the famed Ambience and Sahara in Gurgaon and scores of others in Delhi. But you just cannot scamper away to those famous places every time your eyes burn with desire to watch the latest release; your tongue lets loose a stream of saliva to dab into something chatpata, some pizza burger sandwich chicken fry; your wallet appears too heavy and eager to shed some bucks to get some famous brand, some trousers, bra, lingerie, underwear, undergarments, jeans, shirts, tops, trackpants, sneakers, and more. We get as much itchy to spend as we are eager to earn. That’s where the consumer culture draws its lifeblood from. And these days you don’t want to hunt around in a dusty sweaty market to get your cravings fulfilled. There are too many shops and too many provisions. You need too little items and of many types. You want it at one place. So even a small town, with its inhabitants having seen the luxury a mall offers, has to have a mall.

And here it comes up like the first tottering steps of a toddler.

The three-storeyed mall has come up to at least partially fulfill the shoppers’ and idlers’ dreams. It’s an adolescent town running to meet its mature city self down the decade. One side on the ground floor has garments, footwear and a couple of saloons. The other side has struggled. Subway struggled there, so did pizza wallas, and so did the franchisee-less efforts at cuisine by enterprising dish-makers. The peda and lassi wallah left. They left with more enthusiasm than they opened. A Patanjali store, sure of its brand, on the upswing, has taken the space of three stores, by removing the walls in between. It has more display cases and rows than the number of people at a time. Still we survive for future. The brand gives all indication of growing, growing and still growing. Let’s see how long it goes.

On the second floor, one side is ready to take shoppers in. But it is all shuttered up, no takers so far. The other side is yet to have its separate blocks of shops. Even the floor tiles are missing. You just have the all-clear view across the class front along the outer side. We missed the basement part. It has a huge, stuffed to the gills, provision store. The rest is parking lot where hardly anyone parks, apart from those who have set up business here. Teenagers just try to get suddenly invisible, now standing here, now gone, and steal some kisses behind the pillars in the basement. A boy and a girl kissing, though still a considerable scandal, is no longer the sin it used to be a decade back when it fetched honor killings as consequences. Now it fetches leering, jealous remarks and sniping hooting. That much is digestible for a godamm kiss. Of course there are many, who don’t have a girl in their lives, even in this freeway decade, when many successful macho boys claim girls are better available than even brandless shirts in rundown stores, who prowl around to catch it preferably on camera, and leave it in the endless stream of the social media.

Domino’s arrived with a bang, “Try all new Dominos”. The had the push of their brand. Unfortunately not many takers. It closed. Displays are still there, waiting for a new player to relieve them of their wasted duty. On the glass-fronted marketplace side of the mall, Looks Unisex Saloon is displayed in white letters on a tar black board. Its plush interiors and golden embellishments invite with a modern smirk. To surpass the rickety level of modernity, both males and females are welcome. Well, that makes it modern by default. It’s a humungous effort to catch up with modernity. The rate of change has lagged a bit in the society lynched by patriarchy. By the salon’s side, New York Slice are gone. Unique Collection, the garmenters, look over the counters to spot some serious buyers. The staff at Giani’s since 1956 broom the not so stamped floor, trying to make it swank clean. They are trying to look damn busy, thinking their up to the marl seriousness will draw people. By its side Satyam Medical Store sells condoms, I-pills, toffees, chocolates, napkins, but hardly any takers for medicines. They must selling some headache pills and ENO to survive.

In the lobby flex-board covered cubicle welcomes you. It’s Batra Lemon Corner, a red cubicle with price lists of nimbu lemon, jeera lemon, milk rose, pista rose and many more displayed all along the upper half of the set-up. The lower half of the cubicle still carries the signs of its past. The previous entrepreneur, Sip and Bite, tried to seduce young boys and girls with patties, aloo patties, macrony patties, chilly patties and still more. The past that never was, it hardly began, and ended. It but still survives to remind some bored eyes that there are patties in this world. On the ground floor some shutters are closed, but they have displays. These are shops in making. Auram, by Nisha. No clue what it may mean or stand for. Time will tell. It may remain anonymous, the entrepreneur may decide to call it quits at this stage only. A nail art saloon, D’nails, get any design on your nail. It seems progressive. Till a decade back those who look at the board didn’t even realize the importance of decking up face, forget about nails  which got broken while dealing with buffaloes and bulls in the fields. Dollar, always on top, upcoming. These are rich red letters bordered with white on a pitch black board. An aggressive style statement for the undergarment brand. They have been around for some time, so may storm through the initial apathy of window-shoppers.

Like a dead, open-mouthed whale the green Subway cubicle has been closed with more enthusiasm than it was started with. Or is it open forever? Sub in white and Way in yellow, in a white elliptical background. Metal chairs and plastic tables are neatly stacked inside. At least there is grace in closing down. The owner seems to be a diligent person. There is also a plastic room cooler and glassless display case. It was a world which saw its end coming even before it was born. Nearby, Amazing Kids is yet to come with its collection of kids wear. The starter must be keeping a close watch over the kids loitering around holding the fingers of their parents. United Colors of Benetton, the spacious interior has enough kindness for privacy of flirtation among the sales staff. Shopping wise there isn’t much of botheration. Priya Retail Store, shop and save. The invitation is very sympathetic. But is there any saving after shopping. Ever? Anywhere? It’s about spending. Baker’s Hut has nice, suave, white, brown, grey tiles. Who cares. The attendant is yawning like he has just woken up, even though it’s almost lunch time. City Heart Restaurant has claustrophobic interiors. An LED blares as if in the musty back eats of a disc. Teenagers just sit around to watch some song, drink water, do their stuff under the tables and go out. In the garments store, even the notice of 50% discount offer repels more people than it attracts.

Very few people take the lift, after all it’s a matter of just two flights of stairs. But its door has advertisements strips arranged very nicely. These are city brandmakers: Family Dentist, Verma Pathology, Rawal Retina Centre, Bansal Health Square, City Computer Point. Small people with big dreams. Well, isn’t world made of such people only. Those who are no longer small hardly live.

The third floor is the most lively one. They have two screens of Max Cinema on the one side. Opposite is a long and spacious gym, running along the full length of the mall. You can see fat middle aged women, their children gone to schools, and husbands packed off to workplaces, sweating out on the treadmill to chuck out tummy and bum fat right there at noontime. It’s also about getting some Godsent opportunity of some fling to bear up the sinisterly boring tide of the creepy mid-life crisis and boredom.

Max Cinema entry is a bit livelier. They do some business at least. Not that they play nice movies all the time, but basically because they provide privacy and darkness. Icing on the cake. Couples with thudding hearts sneak in to get corner seats to hold hand and do a bit more as would not make them repent the cost of INR 300 for two seats. Two teenagers are stopped by the guard who asks them to take the Centrefresh out. “You put it on the seats,” he is in a position to chide. Those who don’t have a girl actually do this, possibly as revenge and a sort of rebellion by their teenaged self.  

National anthem before gets played before the movie starts. Nobody wants to court controversy, so all stand up willingly, unwillingly. They get down even before the great anthem finished. Nobody wants to lose even a precious second in the cool darkness.  

In the national flag, saffron and green are separated by white. How symbolic. There has to be peace between them. But who will play white?    

It’s the cinema that makes the story for this mall in its infancy. The heaviest footfall was when Dangal was screened. It was never livelier. What a crowed! The owners may have the first night of best sleep during Dangal screening.

Cinema is pushing the revolution of bringing boys and girls together. The surrounding area is deeply conservative. Teenagers and adolescents don’t look forward to hit films. They like those lean weeks when there is no hit spoiling their hideout by the surging crowds. They prefer flops, when hardly anyone comes for the show. The big, dark, cool hideout is the perfect bargain for 150 rupees. A lot of intimacies unfold, with just a few dozen couples busy with their expression of love and lust in far corners, in the middle of the rows, and anywhere a contriving self of a flushed adolescent deems it fit.

You may have the best of a girl with the worst of a guy, the best of a boy with a horribly thin girl, both good looking, both average, both funny. As many combos you can ever think of. It’s an eclectic mix. It’s not about choice. The floodgates have recently been opened, so you cannot be choosy. It’s only about having a boy or a girl friend. On principle. Choices, what, when, how, where and why come later.

Girls come with their faces covered with headcloth. Hooded for secrecy. The strains of patriarchy are still surviving. Honor killings are still not totally unheard off. It’s better to be cautious. The headcloth, which kept women in almost slavery for centuries, is now an instrument of freedom, of anonymity, of facelessness. With it you just become a girl, you lose your name. You cover your face and you lose your identity to become just a girl. So scornful eyes of the elders will just curse a girl generally, instead of you particularly. They wear jeans, suit and salwaars, awkward imitation of the world in the movies and the Delhi NCR. Some look terribly funny though. But it’s more important to assert your independence. It can come at the cost of sounding funny. A dignified slavery is worse. A funny independence is better. Somehow. Don’t have the logic for this. Just that it feels so.  

They loiter around, almost on tiptoes, keeping a strict watch from their hooded faces and eyes, lest they be recognized by some acquaintance. If they haven’t actually seen it, at least all of them have heard of honour killings that were rampant, as little back as 5 years ago, in each and every settlement in Haryana. So it’s about flying with the wings of age, of curiosity, of sex, intimacy, kissing and holding hands. The mall thus grows in operation, month after month more people come, making it less scandalous for the young ones. Let’s hope the theft becomes a routine affair of life, to draw it out from the illegal shadows of minds to turn it just a mere simple fact of life, to stop rape, to vanquish molestation.

Legal, white murder

Do you think only you, I mean the human beings, have the right to tell you story? No man, no! Even we trees have the right to tell the tale of our life, especially when the main protagonist is man, the master of nature presently. So listen you all, humans as well as others who comprise nature. The two are different now by the way. Listen!

Well, I am a huge eucalypts tree standing by a road. But since now I stand more as a roadblock, they are killing me. The iron is hissing and kissing the rings of age in my stout trunk. I stand benumbed and in daze. But I have to speak out before I fall. Possibly you listeners will spot the crime and just—at least—get an idea of the pain I feel while I am being slaughtered.

Well, I feel really sad and bad about it. I never thought the end will come so soon, without any notice. There is no storm threatening to uproot me. It’s a very fine day, but all the more suitable to the humans to carry out their act of greed. My killing but is unjustified because I have been fulfilling all my duties assigned by Mother Nature to me.

The way I have gone overboard in carrying out my task, I think I should have been lucky enough to see the majesty of upcoming wintery full moon. The moon-rays are very naughty I tell you. You may be lost in brighter self-created neon lights, but nothing can beat the beauty of full moon rays on a winter night. I pine for one more such night! Alas, it seems impossible! I have to take solace by remembering the past only. 

See, you may not realise it, but your tools of cutting, your axes, saws, scythes and blades are very painful. I have to impose anaesthesia on myself, for I cannot even cry like you guys. Still I can feel the saw’s butchering the bloodless flesh in my guts. But poor me, I don’t even have the blood to put forth the evidence of a murder. Even though my flesh is as good as yours, but mine doesn’t bleed, so even the sanguine interior as they saw through it, appears simple painless stone to them. But I feel the pain, I swear. Just want to tell. Please don’t take my cutting as simple as breaking a stone.

It’s a hazily sun-lit winter noon. It appeared such a balmy day. I was looking at the people warmly moving onto their destination. But then they suddenly arrived like hounds. I was even surprised why so many of them arrived and started prodding me, slapping me out of my languorous spell. I don’t even know whether to throw my almost harmless, inaudible curse at these fellows. They are helpless themselves.

The state itself has authorised my murder to broaden this already fat road. But this state I cannot see, even though it’s present everywhere. Possibly, it’s bigger and stronger than God Himself. God made me, and is now helpless before the saw of the state. So you can very well guess who is stronger. I feel like bowing before the state to plead for my life.

Let me be clear on this. It’s a murder. You may prefer to call it just cutting wood. But there is a life inside. Never forget this. Don’t I grow like you guys do? Don’t I do my duty of purifying air and providing shade, and give dead and even live wood, like you people claim your utility?

For many decades, I have been standing as a serving helper to both man and nature. During older times, this metalled road, this carrier of huge traffic and so called your ‘progress’, was simply a dirt road. It was my friend taking your forefathers to their common destinations. Nobody was in damn hurry like you people these days. I stood here as a milestone reached by a tired pair of legs or a rickety bull-cart, who halted under me, savouring the shade I provided. I felt so proud of myself.

This very path has turned a foe now. It’s a highway after all, the merciless, fast-paced carrier of growth. It has turned a parasite now. It needs more space. Damn it, they don’t need shade and pure air now. These can be easily managed in the metal boxes that hurtle day and night on it. So I’m redundant and old. I have turned a road-blocker of progress with my few square-feet of foot-hold.

Man, again I try to shout and remind you that if a healthy mass like me is no life, then yours is also not so important. By cutting us you are cutting yourselves, for you are nothing but merely an extension of our world, a mere reflection of the nature around you. We gone, even you will be gone. Haa fools, now I can afford to call you as such during these final moments, for you cannot even see the precipice you are heading into.

Man, now it is hurting quite a lot. But I have resolved to keep telling my murder story till the axes, scythes and saws send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes in some poor household’s fire-place.

We trees never wince with pain as your axes spray chips of our flesh. Just because our flesh is different coloured doesn’t mean we don’t feel the pain. We do, man!

We had equal rights till mankind was just a part of nature, not the master of it. Now this saw going deeper and deeper into my bloodless guts reminds me of our inevitable fate. Every tree on earth now has a deadly date with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.

Haa the cowards! Forever playing so safe! They know that I’m huge. The poor things are afraid of my fall to bring them some injuries. Little do they realise that a tree’s pride is in standing tall and upright. And we do it till the last ounce of our strength. I am not going to give in that easily. They have to earn my dead body. It cannot be a cakewalk. Let them have blisters on their hands. It will serve as a proof of my murder.

Little do they realise my commitment to my duty, my oath to Mother Nature. Even in the face of death, I cannot stop playing my part in the natural scheme of things. As they are robbing me of my few square feet of space on earth, my saplings are still giving them life, still doling out oxygen under this winter sun. I am helpless and bound to my sworn duty. I cannot be vindictive and stop fuelling life into their lungs, even if they happen to be my murderers. Even my murder cannot change me, helpless as I am due to my nature.

Now the saw has gone pretty deep. I am getting the signs of that eternal sleep. There is also an unbearable pain in the so called painless mass. Death is death after all. Hope you understand.

Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes are tied to direct my fall. From a safe distance tractors are pulling to bring down this wooden bull. They are worried, but are assured of victory. There are too many of them, with steely human determination to win, to stifle any chance of failure. No, I don’t see any chance of a miracle. It’s as hopeless as it can be.

Now I feel it. The death blow! The pinnacle of their jeering selves. A  cleavage breaks through the portion still holding me to my mother earth. From softest saplings to rock hard tissues, my whole self is panicked. But still I have to tell the tale of my murder before I finally fall. My saplings are crying like innocent children. The hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying like the battle hard, handsome soldiers on their knees after losing the war. Death is after all death. Who wants to cease to exist?

Who cares? Nobody. This big snapping sound is my death cry. And here I fall with a thud. Yes man, you win. I am dead before I thought I will.

A destiny caught in the groins

The new item number is just too juicy. Voluptuous moves. Raunchy notes. Suggestive lyrics. It grips the audience in the slanting ambience of throbbing rawness. The choreographer, the lyricist and the music director have done full justice to the edifying undercurrents of her mystical curves. Everyone has had their own set of imagination about her while working on their parts in the musical number. She gyrates in half-thigh-length, tight, gold-threaded dhoti and beaded choli.

She has perfect figure, finest curves, very charming features and flawless skin. She flaunts her sexuality with cast-iron certainty. And millions gasp for breath. They make as much noise as they do in religious processions with cheering conches and clapping cymbals. 

One thing, but, goes missing in all this glamorous show. There is a shadowy dot in the incessant bustle of revealing anecdotes. It’s her innocent laughter and child-like simplicity of mind. When she smiles, it’s a pure soft outburst of merriment untouched by any trace of malice and shrewdness. When she laughs, it also is pure like a child does when amused at a small, simple thing. But this unsophisticated self is covered up by her dazzling sex appeal. Even if it shines at all, people prefer to ignore it. They have more important things to gloat over, to quench the hunger of mind, the famed Indian hunger of opposite sex in the head, beyond all outside taboos and evil talk of dirty acts like sex and all.

She has left unswerving trailblazers among young adults. She has earned quite a bit of name in the industry. She gets interviews now and then in the mainstream media. On such occasions, she is her usual unsophisticated self. However, the person on the other end seems on watch, like peeping over a fence, guarding himself from some strange reaction inside. And all the onlookers know and understand the inhibitions running inside the anchor’s head. They hardly seem to listen to her for their minds are somewhere else.

Even the skimpiest dress covering the barest minimum seems to irritate the masses. For each artwork of dance by her watched on the YouTube, they go back to the gray zone on the Internet and draw out ghosts from her past. Yes it satisfies the lust in them, those clips where they can see all of her. Not even a shred of clothing intervening. They gloat over her curves, the act, the ejaculations, have theirs and come back to watch her feisty item numbers.

The ink of her past appears too dense. More than the density of the ink, the people seem to just hold onto it. They simply don’t want to forego the image. It gratifies the most overpowering sense, sex. Her item numbers just fan the fire even more. 

It has been a massive effort: the journey from hard porn to soft porn.

The roles she gets, apart from the item numbers, involve sex, glamour, intrigues and extramarital affairs: the sociable, bridgeable sexuality unlike the unchecked rampancy of outright naked game.

She knows hers is a humongous task. The road from being a porn star to a so called normal film star is riddled with countless obstacles. Sexual zealots fire bullets from both sides. She exists in the chambers of lust in their ever-greedy minds, so she just cannot escape like this. They have to hunt her down. They have tunnel-vision about her and don’t want to see beyond.

Only she knows the amount of effort she has put in moving from full porn to semi porn. It is like traversing poles at the opposite ends. From being a naked mannequin in full public glare, you walk down as they run after you, and you struggle to cover yourself with normal human sensitivities of respect and being treated like anyone around. People somehow resent it, throw jibes and try their best to keep their goods to gratify their lust. So the demonic retinue of the ghosts from her past follows her like a shadow clings to a person walking in the open on a sunny noon.

She is struggling to come out of the cloistered corridors, but the path ahead is nothing short of an ominous labyrinth. She has to dilute the dark ink of the past. Wipe it altogether and write a new identity, to feel normal like any other star in the industry. It is like bringing night and day together: from porn to semi porn.

She wants to go further. She is an artist and works on her acting skills to the last ounce of her perseverance. She wants the normal roles like any other actress around.  But she cannot enter each and every brain to wipe the past lying there, allowing them to see her present and appreciate her art. The directors who approach her, have ready-made, predetermined formula of a feisty woman, the woman for whom men fall, creating ripples around. These are feisty tales of sex, murder, extramarital relations and scores of lusty intrigues. All this but seems to set up a prelude to the same urge to see her porn movies.

There are trolls as well, the social media crusaders, who yank reputations to shreds, pour their boiling scorn and burn the images from safe heavens. There are abuses, lewd remarks, copy-pasted links of her online porn clips, gross invitations and still more. She no longer takes them head on and simply blocks them. But the words haunt her for long hours during the nights when she is practicing her acting skills.

With the big, bossy, disparaging world buzzing around, she sometimes gets judgmental on herself, and finds herself at fault for getting into the porn industry to begin with. But wasn’t that the launch-pad for crossing the jarring atmospherics of anonymity, escaping her adolescent nightmare of just getting sold by life without leaving any mark, and that too with such flawless skin, exotic features and dreamy contours? It was a search for embryonic possibilities, to give life to her dreams, to make a mark, to become something. And with her inexperienced self, she jumped into the pool with incisive sincerity. The towering grandeur of success bathed her flawless skin with pointed flashlights of riotous recognition. She wrote sporadic and patchy tales of her feats on millions of craving hearts.

The art of sex! It was a wild river toppling the mountains, melting the slopes and breaking boulders. Ruthless. Like it will never stop. But beyond the fury, at the end of falling over a huge cliff face, in the slow-swirling waters of after-fall majesty, the man lying sprawled, spent under her, she laughed so innocently, with such unassuming vivacity that it instantly changed her persona from manhood slayer to a simple vulnerable girl. Even in her movies now one can hear that innocent trill, like a little bell around the neck of a mountain sheep. A little jaunt on the green slope. And the whiffs of tinkling bell carried by gentle air down the valley. It’s but lost in bigger noises. This little insignia of her vulnerability, this tiny pause in the journey of the stormy mountain river, this interlude amidst crazily heaving waves is missed by almost all the spectators.

Most of the men, who comprise the audience of her present movies, have masturbated some time or the other while watching the porn clips portraying her as the temptress sucking away all lust from the planet. They own her in that part of their brain which stimulates desire. They want the sensation to remain stuck in their groins. They fight to stop it from sneaking into the aesthetic corridors of art and beauty. The image, with its customary stimulation, is too big and overpowering. It keeps flashing in their minds as they watch her in movies now. They expect the same gratification. They look at something else, the character in the movie, while a different scene is playing in their minds. The more she tries to prove her acting credentials, the more they delve deeper into the spools of the Internet to grab handfuls of lusty morsels to satisfy their hunger.

With hard-porn blazing in their minds, they are mildly comfortable as long as her roles are on the margin of soft-porn.

She is in the office of a famous director. There is a word that he is finalizing the cast for his upcoming potboiler. For the last two months she has been working on her acting skills in a famous acting school.

“Well, it will be too revolutionary to put you in the cast. The role is too, too….,” he hesitates, rolls his eyes and draws his fingers over his bald pate.

His office is ensconced in luxury. There is solitary grandeur and cozy ambience well managed by a famous interior designer. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. In the palpable silence, she can literally feel what is he thinking about at that time. Her past and that iron-cast image seem to have seeped and submerged with the pulse of the ongoing time. Its magnetic force is too strong for her to completely escape out of its orbit.

He is in the pink of health for a man in mid-fifties. His eyes are assured like they have the fully authorized assessment of any situations related to film-making.

“The role is too mainstream for you,” he says firmly and winks as if to convince himself of his logic.

She gets a pinprick and avoids a visible shudder. It is a fight to maintain her dignity in the halls of fame glittering with virtuous testimonies on the walls around.

“I have been working very hard for this role. Please take an audition, of any duration, of whatever intensity required for the character,” she tries to stay normal.

“Oh, audition. You know, umn, it’s more about suitability for the character. You know, all actors have certain affinity for the role they are most suitable,” he is driving it hard.

“But it’s not fair. I deserve a chance to be tested. I, I…,” her determination is melting, the typecast of her past is too bold.

She avoids his gaze and is drawn to the reticent muse of a famous heroine looking at her from the framed portrait on the wall. Oh, that was the unhurried old world. Times have changed now. Her brief eerie is broken by his drooling words.

“Why work so hard to bruise your beautiful skin on a path that is new to you. By doing the kind of roles that you have done so far, you have earned name, fame and money. You rule their hearts like none of the actresses around,” he laughs and looks lividly.

“But, you know…,” he cuts her mid sentence.

He seems to have set up his mind to the pursuit of a fancy that lies inside all successful men. They have elastic interpretations of the situation of a woman who wants a part in their success story. They are naturally inclined to pull it for their advantage. He is no exception. 

“Ok, you can spread more pleasure than you think. Let’s have an audition,” he leans back in his chair and his eyes bore into her bosom.

He appears perfectly at ease with himself, undaunted and untroubled by any doubt about the success of the project at hand.

“You know, it’s a huge budget film. A make or break for many. It’s not that easy as you think,” he knits his brows and appears damn serious.

She takes his serious expression even more seriously.

“Yaa I understand. But at least accept me as one of the competitors. I can prove myself. Hope you watched my last movie,” she sits erect in her chair like a thorough professional.

He doesn’t remember anything except the feisty dance on a raunchy number. Her curves swirl around in his imagination. He closes his eyes and takes his memory still further, away to the fantasy world of naked, unprohibited revelry. He recalls the minutest details of her anatomy. The shade of pubic hair, the genitalia, like so many others, still different, her rampant foray into sucking out all pleasure and spit triumphantly, and that innocent trill of laughter.

She is surprised, watching him with eyes closed for a long pause. She breaks the reverie.

“Sir, you know…,” she draws him out of that other worldly charm.

“Hmmm!” he appears a bit irritated like somebody shaken out of sleep midway through a heavenly dream. “You know it will be too revolutionary,” his eyebrows are drawn taught.

She doesn’t say anything. For his age he is a strong, fit, confident man. He gets up to take out a file from the rack by the wall. He is aroused. Possibly he has got up in that state to show what is going inside him. She can see it. It’s protruding. He doesn’t want to hide it even, as if wanting to convey the message. She feels insecure, even sad and looks resignedly. On an instinct, she adjusts her knee-length skirt as if to protect herself.

The office air hangs in suspension as if jolted out of its senses by a startling, telling remark.

He gets back to his chair, more relaxed now, sure that his arousal has been seen. The message is directly passed. His bald head is glowing purple red. 

“You know, it’s a fight. This world of actors and actresses. Specially for big banner movies. It requires talent, skills, luck as well, connections, image and even personal history,” he stops for her to absorb the bitter truth.

She feels saliva in her mouth and swallows it nervously. The deep hum of sadness surfaces in her big eyes.

“You know ambitious young actresses go to any length to grab the top spot. And of course there are gentlemen who welcome such dedication,” he smiles, staring deep into her bluish-brown eyes.

“Well. I, I am ready for …audition,” she mumbles.

She is losing confidence rapidly.

“Then go for the audition,” he stands up.

He has already unzipped himself and the audition phallus is out. It’s an open invitation. A simple give and take. A short audition and the role for her.

He seems helpless. He is shivering out of sheer excitement forced by the raw, scandalous adventure of transgression into her modesty, of being able to propel his naked instinct beyond the fence of law and decorum. He has transposed the dream onto the plain of reality. It’s like grafting himself as the male character in all those plays of naked flesh.

Just the mere sight of it fills her mouth with the typical taste of it. She has done it many times in the past, with such gripping greed and madness that it felt like she was out there to drain all masculinity of its coffers of thirst forever.

He is shaking and imploring her to drain him out of his misery, of his frustration born of unquenchable thirst.

“Come on! After this there is no stopping for you. You will choose your roles,” he is gasping for breath.

There is a chance for her to be an actress, a real actress like anyone around. It’s tempting. She is holding the armrests tightly. But something holds her back. She has been working too hard, late into the nights to push herself further to come out of this soft-porn mould. And the deal seems like going back again into the past to redeem future.

She has a struggle ahead she knows it. She is determined to face it. She is not ready to go into the future with the life-support of the past she is cutting from her life. It seems unjustified, even unethical to both the past and the future.

She gets up and turns around the table to approach him. He is on the verge of fainting, with all those wildest fancies just about to clutch him into the heavens of ecstasy. He feels her touch on the protruding phallus of his life-long hunger. Helpless he surrenders and closes his eyes.

He wakes up to the taut sound of his trousers’ zip. She has safely put his strayed self into the safety of his pants and closed the doors on it. He cannot believe it.

“Do you even know what are you doing! It’s over for you!” he flies into a blinding rage.

“Yes sir, this project might be over. But not all is lost for me. I have a struggle ahead and would prefer to work over months, even years, instead of taking five-minute short-cuts to reach there. That will take me back to where I started from,” she is very calm, and looks at him with unoffended, sad eyes. 

She comes forward again and shakes his hand very politely and professionally and backs out. With even more politeness she closes the door behind her. There are tears of pride in her eyes as she crosses the floor. And a new wave of determination pervades her beautiful curves.

One more step, one more breath

All you need to avoid a fall is to take one more step, then another, and then another. You should be bothered about just one more step, forget about miles and more miles, these are meaningless without your step. One more step keeps you the journeyman. It means you are right there, still moving, still fighting. Victory is always alive as long as you are ready to take one more step.

Just like life means one more breath, living means one more step. Don’t fall, take at least one more step, then another, only this much. That’s all you have to do for life and living: one more breath, one more step. And your one more step becomes more significant than the endless miles and still more miles. Your step defines miles not the vice versa. One more breath, one more step. And you retain your chances to reach somewhere, where you surprise yourself the most in your achievement.

The darkness isn’t completely dark as long as the tiniest of a flicker burns steadily, unsteadily in any corner of the cosmos. It holds the chances of light, of a win, of a fight, sometime when conditions are more suitable. Hold your light. Hold your chances of a blaze. It can even be the littlest star shining in your fatigued eyes from the farthest distances across stormy clouds.

Just look back, some small-time remark of appreciation, some grateful bow, some serious acknowledgment, some feeble smile, some tiny reward to the tune of INR 500, some words of praise. Hold them. Cherish them. Pick them up from the dusty corners of your room. They are the treasure. They are the light, they are the breath, they are the one more step. One more step is as important as the complete journey. Or even bigger than that. A tiny flicker of light, lost in the darkish wombs of loss, is as big as the big-bang of primordial light and fire that created this universe.

Long before you conquer the word, learn to be happy with the tiny rewards that hold your dreams in piece, which sustain the life of your goals just like one more breath sustains your life. This tiny word of appreciation will one day turn into a massive trophy, a massive applause, with camera lights flashing around and thousands screaming fans. This little smile on your lips will turn into a broad grin of triumph.

Hold the littles in your life, acknowledge their role like one more step keeps the journey, and one more breath keeps life together.

A mouthful of sand

The summer is at its peak. Hot loo vaporises the beads of sweat before they trickle down. It’s almost noontime, and the sun is moving to its tortuous best. A little sand-swirl swings in its tiny typhonic trajectory. It is shifting towards her. She moves away, but then forgetting herself runs towards the infant asleep among crumpled soiled clothes put in a broad wicker basket under a tree. She has to take up the little one before the sand-swirl passes over it. She stalls the ill omen by a whisker. The baby is safe, she smiles at it.

Her already fatigued body groans with pain as a result of the effort. The child whimpers, she gets a frown, the littlest trace of it, but then effortlessly turns it into a smile. She is a mother after all. No child exists to make them perfectly angry. Under the shade of the mulberry tree, at the corner of the tiny agricultural plot of land, she sings a lullaby. Her song spreads over the red hot, yellowish tomatoes baking under the sun.

She sings well. It sounds an oddity against the background of rough Haryanvi outpours of farming retorts, abuses and crude diction, the famed ruff and gruff of the peasant dialect in this part of northern India. Their behaviour beats even their diction, by the way. The musicality gives a clue that she might not be a Haryanvi. Her looks stamp the truth even further. She is petite, dusky, round faced with delicate features. She has come from far, from a different world altogether.

The child is asleep again after suckling at the drops of her maternal affection. Nothing satisfies a mother more than giving something extra to her child. She now shades her eyes with the palm of her hand to look into the distance. The sandy path leading out of the village lying in the silvery blue distance is forlorn. The heat rising from the sand shakes the horizon like—she recalls it in a flash—the steam swaying over the cauldron on the fire pit at home.

He is nowhere to be seen, her husband, who is expected to bring her food. It was supposed to be a breakfast, but it’s now almost lunch time. She has worked on empty stomach for around five hours, taking just waters to subdue the guttural complaints of her empty stomach.

She isn’t feeling as bad as she should, given her position overall and particularly today. Her five month old son is around, almost as a saviour, casting a lifeful shadow like a tiny fluke of cloud, sheltering her from the fire of hunger, loneliness and self-pity. The breaks from work, to hold him, to sing songs, to breast feed him, to change his cloth diapers, are more comforting than even the rest under the mulberry’s dense shade.

She takes her dose of energy by looking at the sleeping child’s serene face. It’s as happy and calm as the face of the wealthiest person on the earth. After all, all of us are born with the same share of happiness. It’s another matter that it gets robbed off as we grow, making most of us poor and leaving just a few of us rich.  

She takes a few swigs of water. Immediately she feels fresh to start again. The sun is almost firing over the summer tomatoes. She is worried about the loo. It gives sunstrokes. If that happens, it will be worse for her child. She wants to keep herself safe, for it means keeping the child safe. Mother’s feverish milk isn’t good for the child’s health. But then she has to work, there is no option. After all, the daily outputs of 30-40 kg help her in running the household.

It does serve another purpose. Her husband beats her a bit less. It often is like this. Whenever she doesn’t bother him with money to buy the daily necessities to pull the rickety cart of their humble home, he sobers down so much as to only throw abuses, instead of the kicks he delivers in the other scenario. To avoid bothering him, and be lucky with abuses only without the incentive of kicks, she home delivers tomatoes within the village, at a price suitably lesser than the street hawkers, to tilt the deal in her favour.

Despite fighting it out day and night, with sweat, kicks and social scorn, she feels like she doesn’t exist at all. Not here at least. She is invisible, casteless and exists like a dirt-road side bush whom nobody sees particularly. But she exists in memories. Vivid memories of her small hamlet in Jharkhand flash over her lone self. That was the time when she lived. Now she just survives.    

She remembers that world. The flashes from there help her in meeting a present that is completely devoid of her past, and more poignantly, where she can’t think of future beyond the grasp of another day with her infant in her arms and the toddler holding her hand. It’s like dragging an ungrateful life like a stone tied to your foot. You are secretly eager to leave it behind and move on to get better luck in the next birth. Well, belief in rebirth is a big invisible blank cheque. It helps, man. You fill up your figure as you deem fit.

She works for some more time. The hunger has returned. The baby is scowling again. She offers her milk. It is pacified. Again the flashes from a world that was, reach her to provide solace, a replacement for bread: the greenery, the huts, the small hamlet, the stream nearby, the pond, and the tree. The big banyan in particular. She had grown playing hide and seek in its leafy green mess and aerial roots.

That was the world where she really lived. Here it is no life; in fact, there are so many occasions when she even wishes to be dead. But then even death repels those who look forward to it as a benefactor. It prefers to stay cruel and unwanted encroacher into destinies. That’s what makes death what it is.  

She recalls her mother’s wails as they brought father’s body. He had died in a coal mine collapse. To keep the day’s white for his brood of children, he had worked in coal mines near Rajhara town. Sakhui village, Padwa block, Palamu district, Jharkhand, she reads the line in her mind as many times as possible, regularly, lest she forget it.

It contains her roots. One shouldn’t forget one’s roots. She knows it well. That will be even worse than dying and make this living meaningless. She has written it on a paper and put it next to the silver earrings, her most valuable item on her bridal self. She gets worried about it. Has she lost it? That’s her back up because she doesn’t trust her mind now because it’s plagued with so many worries. After all, it is her domicile, her certificate of identity. She will write one more copy, she decides. It’s better to have two. It’s safe.

A quaint hamlet of 600 or so souls. Their faces loom large over her father’s body. Tribals, scheduled castes and Muslims, surviving at the fringes, in blackness, in soot, and die a black death. They had to put a lot of effort to wash the black from the corpse but had to given up, hoping that mother earth won’t differentiate among white, black or brown in offering sleep in its sandy womb. The burial had to be postponed for a few hours. The village head had gone to Daltonganj, the district city about 13 Km away. The coalmine labourer was buried outside the hamlet among the cluster of tiny earth-mounds that served as the cemetery.

She sees her world, vividly, as if she has hyperopia, disabling her to focus on the world nearby and taking her far-seeing eyes to peek into distances.

There is a solitary mango tree in the distance. There were so many around their village. She recalls the huge one by the pond. She had jumped from an overhanging branch into a group of frogs. She chuckles as the scene strike with vivacity.

The cool breeze blowing through Mahua trees sashays over hundreds of kilometres and calms her down and comforts her, listens to her plight, her loneliness. She laughs loudly as she recalls a drunken melee at a marriage in the village. The drink made of Mahua flowers is the poor villagers’ companion in celebration, just as are its wood, flowers and seeds. She closes her eyes and inhales the typical smell of Mahua. She isn’t that far from her home, she feels. The distance though is more than 1,000 km.

She has picked up a little bunch of lady fingers today to sell in the neighbourhood. Ramtorai, she picks up one and holds it. She says it loudly. They call it bhindi here. People cackle with laughter when she calls these ramtorai. It’s almost entertainment to them. Pumpkin is konhra there. But it’s Kaddu here. Cucumber is Kundri there. But it’s Kheera here. She has been learning fast. She wants them to laugh less at her.   

There were oranges and melons along the streams; at least, a thing of delight for the eyes, if not for the stomach. She finds the treeless monotony here intimidating. It’s an agricultural monolith propelled by mechanisation. It’s in the grasp of paddy and wheat monotony. Her husband owns just a little bit of land, so they are into vegetables to survive.

Hunger is terrible now. All efforts to not think of it are futile. Her mouth waters as she recalls the instrument of beating hunger back home.  It strikes her imagination: the corolla of Mahua flowers, a fleshy blossom, pale yellow coloured saviour when they hadn’t almost anything at home. So delicious, fresh, exciting, disagreeable, pungent and sweetish! A riot of sensations, a poor man’s delicacy.

The blossoms are dried under the sun to turn brown to be used later. It gives her goose-bumps as she recalls the blossoms springing from the ends of the smaller tree branches, in bunches from 20 to 30, approaching ripeness, swelling with juice, falling to the ground. And she and other children laying the first claim. She is smiling. The memory has driven away all the pains of life. The gathering of Mahua windfalls. Drying of the flowers on dung-coated earth. Gossips under Mahua tree. The oil-fried Mahua blossoms. The distillation of spirits from the dried blossoms. Well, that was life. None of it exists here.

Remembering the past means remembering herself. Although physically present here, nobody seems to bother that she exists. So she captures a piece of that world in her memory.

Mahua blossoms fall till June when the fruits ripe. We don’t shake the trees or break the fruits. It will not bear fruits if fruits are plucked by hand. We wait for their natural fall. The ripe fruit is about the size of a peach. It has three different skins and has a white nut or kernel inside. The fruit is used in three ways. The two outer skins are both eaten raw and cooked as vegetables. The dried inner skin is ground up into flour. Oil is extracted from the kernel which is used for cooking purposes and for fake-mixing with ghee.

The trail of thought comes clearly. It feels triumphant like a lesson crammed to the hilt in a nursery class. She is thankful to the God that despite the hard living, she has retained the memories of her land.

She recalls the pleasant, acidic taste of hair plum and the pinch of its thorny thicket. They used to jest that it was their apple, the poor man’s apple.

She isn’t new to agriculture. They had a little plot of arable land. Sanai was grown as green manure. The goats really liked it. She remembers the robust crops of maize and bora paddy. She helped her mother in her backbreaking toil in the tiny field. That world in the memories is more substantial than the one around her.                  

Then there was the storm which blew her away from the land of her dreams.

Her mother found it impossible to feed the multiple hungry mouths around her. Her sister’s husband stayed in Delhi, a fact of high esteem for anybody in that part. It doesn’t matter if that person spent nights on the pavement, and worked as a labourer during the day or even begged.

He was visiting their place and offered to help her by getting job to her eldest daughter in Delhi.

“I will make her life,” he proffered with a glint of hope in his yellowish eyes.

So she travelled with him to Delhi, the land of dreams, where everybody had money, even the poorest had big bucks in their wallet. She was scared of the bigness of things around her. Everything was in a mad rush. It was so noisy that she stated crying. The craziness of hurtling things and people held her in a tight grip.

It was a world squeezed in a tight fist by the railway line, between the railway stations of Azadpur and Subzi Mandi. It was so close to the railway line that the stinking air pushed by the trains left a clanking, steely storm day and night. Honking, clattering trains were the biggest facts of life, the facts which defined the world itself. These were tiny hutments and hovels, piled one upon another, encroaching by millimetres into each other, to leave no privacy, no space for anything you can relate to a human being.  Illegally constructed on the railway’s land, it stuck to the polluted, dirty neighbourhood like a leech that won’t go even if crushed to bloodied death. And there it drew the feeble chances of survival for countless unfortunates hiding there.

Everything related to life was in a miniature, except the human misery, which was bigger than the trains passing by. It was a black hole which had sucked the whole world into itself. A human swarm which buzzed mindlessly. There was everything, but it was squeezed so tight that it felt like you are standing in a crowd with no space even to scratch your bum. On top of that the incessant clatter of rails bore into your bones as the vibrations crept into your spine as you lay on the wood board to get what they mean by sleep.

From this hovel, he ran a business of arranging purchased brides, a business born of the ill-famed practice of female infanticide in north India, particularly in Haryana, where patriarchy demands a male heir, even from those who have hardy inherited anything and possess no education and skills of any kind to make a living themselves.

There is a significant chunk of marriageable age vagabonds in Haryana who are not eligible bachelors from any angle. They are from poor families, are almost illiterate, have low or no land-holding, and don’t exist anywhere in social standing. They come with the added qualifications of chronic drinking and smoking. But they need to have a bride; otherwise, their souls won’t rest in peace after death. And here comes the business of selling and purchasing brides.  

The unfortunate girl is taken as a sex slave cum servant by the incompetent drunkard, her best utility being an instrument of giving birth to a male heir so that the father can get moksha or liberation after his death.

She was bought for INR 75,000. A bit overpaid, many said.

That very day, someone in the neighbourhood bought a buffalo for INR 82,000. Quite underpaid, still many more said.

So she is the unpaid servant. About sex we need not say anything. About heirs, she has already started the prospects. But to fulfil the role of a mother to her children, who will have almost no inheritance except poverty and misery, she has to kill her present to salvage another day. Her partner, after all, spoils more than he earns in their shared life.

The baby is crying. She comes back to this current world. The shadows have lengthened. The memories have served her like lunch.

She sees two figures on the sandy path coming from the neighbouring village on the other side. So she had been looking in the wrong direction. He is coming from the other way. And lunch? Forget about that. She looks agitated. Even anger creeps in, strange though, given her petite, humbled, unassuming persona.

Her heart starts beating faster. Her breathing is more laboured. The hours-long toil on an empty stomach hadn’t been able to break her proud spirit. But the visuals, turning from vague signals to specific outlines, leave her jolted. Something seems to have snapped suddenly. She gasps for breath and almost falls down. Taking the baby in her arms she cries. 

“It’s that accursed woman. O he the filthy bag has...how can he?” she wipes her tear tears with the corner of her headcloth.

All the hard work in the field seems wasted. She has been fighting to make a home and he kicks at it with such impunity. Repeatedly. Not that she minds too much about the kicks he gives her after getting drunk. That doesn’t appear more than anything beyond the normal, acceptable routine of life. Even the talks and gossips of he having an affair with this woman is tolerable. But to be seen with her, his little sense of worth gets torn away.

She has been just a plaything to her husband. A purchased bride is more of a servant. Even with his low social standing and almost no reputation, he has been able to lord over her. After all, she is just a purchased bride, bought from the hut of misery like farmers trade in cattle. Her price is lower than a good, rotund, glossy black buffalo. No surprise that she occupies almost no place, no name, no dignity in the village.

Even the street urchins take her in casual stride like they do the beggars roaming around. She moves around totally invisible, like a ghost. People just see through her. The only fact known about her is that she is a lowly-placed Muslim from the poorest of a poor family and has been bought at a price lower than an average buffalo.

He is drunk and walks with a swag: an arrogance which seems to be drawn out of a feeling to insult and wound his wife by taking his torture one notch high, to a point where any woman, no matter if she is the gentlest or most aggressive, will feel the brutal pain of it. He seems to have run out of kicks and abuses. So here is the new method to torture his wife, to give her deeper cuts and injuries.

The two of them are walking on the field divide now, having left the sandy countryside path to reach their patch of land. She can now see the face of her husband’s companion. She feels something more painful than slaps and abuses. The other woman is hardly attractive than her, but is quite robust. Somebody’s wife from the so called low caste in the social hierarchy, she walks proudly with a Jat farmer, even though he is haggard, famished, hawkish, and even qualifies below many men from her own community. But then in a caste society, being born in a dominant caste takes precedence over most of the deficits own is born with and makes himself into after birth.

The other woman in her husband’s life!

Her soul burns. It is more insulting than that barrage of nasty legs and hands, and still fouler tongue. The other woman has a better social standing than hers in being a caste born. More importantly, she is not a purchased bride, bought like a buffalo at some cattle fair. The distance between them decreases. It arrives with more visuals now. The other woman has a proud, jibing, mocking look on her face.

A storm is building up in the otherwise unmoving waters of the little lake of her being. He has already started abusing her even before entering their field of tomatoes. Choicest abuses, redder, hotter than any tomato around. From the heap of rotten tomatoes, sorted out while packing in wicker baskets for selling, he picks up a handful and hurls at her. She turns around and crouches down to save her child from getting hit by the slimy, smelling projectiles. She can feel the rotten juice sticking to her kurta, the soft plops and hard hits.

She runs to lay the child at a safe distance. He expects her to take to her heels and is mocking, shouting at the top of his voice.

“Go and run to the hell hole you came from, you filthy bitch!”   

She has already given him a male heir, two in fact, the other one, almost three now, is with her forever prone to faint mother-in-law at their small, misery-personifying home back in the village. So he feels free. If she vanishes in thin air right now, he will be the happiest person for the riddance. 

To his mild surprise, he sees her coming to them now. “Bah, so she seems eager to get introduced to you.”

The other woman shamelessly titters. There have been historical injustices to her and her community. Any chance to humiliate a Jat’s wife is most welcome.

Her husband and the other woman are standing side by side. She forms the triangle at a distance. The man moves forward, raises his hand and slaps hard. It happens with effortless ease, no cause, no effect. She just stiffens her face, not showing any trace of pain, no tears, no howling. Perhaps this boldness is meant for the other woman, her way of dissent, her small effort in not showing them the effect they want to see. After all, a man strikes a woman to see basically the tell-tale effect of his brutish aggression.

He strikes on the other cheek. There is perfect silence. The hard skin of his fingers goes plop on the soft skin of her cheek. She is unmoved. He is feeling ravaged by anger. This rebelliousness is worse that she hitting back. In the grip of cheap liquor, he pauses as if thinking of devising some newer way to insult and humiliate her.

It fuels the mocking spirits in the other woman. She takes it on from the point her surprised lover has left. She catches the mutineer, who has rebelled not to cry, by her hair and raises the other one to smack her hard on the face. The uprooted girl’s small hand comes to life. Before the plumpy hand adds to her insult, her finger catches the soft, wavy wrist. The attacker’s bangles get crushed, puncturing her skin. There is blood. The injured woman shrieks with disbelieving anger and attacks.

To him it’s comical, the heavy woman attacking the small one. The uprooted woman defends well. He is enjoying the show from a distance.

“Fight, fight you bitches, give each other taste of nice blood,” he hollers and claps in enjoyment.

It’s a full on cat fight. They roll among tomatoes, crush many and get all earth smitten.

“I am his wife you slut!” her hair tangled, tomatoes crushed on her face, she yells with such force that the drunk man loses his disgusting sense of entertainment.

She has pinned down the woman who is almost double her size. The latter is panting, out of breath, her massive breasts heaving with the propensity to topple the small woman off her, beads of sweat surfacing profusely on the coarse skin of her face.

She raises her hand to strike, but it doesn’t come down. Hurting doesn’t come naturally to her. She has just defended herself.

Far away from her native place, with almost no possibility of ever meeting any of her relatives, she knows it takes a bit more to survive apart from the uncomplaining hard work and unquestioning acceptance of slaps and kicks by her husband.

She feels survival needs more. And survive she has to for her children. Perhaps survival requires a bit of honour as well. And honour she has salvaged. It feels better than having a bumper crop and a day without violence at home.

She lets go off the beaten opponent and walks up to her child. The moment she turns her face, tears burst out. She but doesn’t want to be seen weak and crying. She wipes her tears, making it look like she is cleaning her face of the mess it is in. She picks a sickle lying in a furrow on the way. Holding it in her hand she stands by the child.

“More than with you, your husband lies in my cot!” the other woman is heard yelling, the words meant to hurt her, to salvage some victory from the defeat.

They are moving back to the village they have come from. She knows he won’t be back at least today.

Far away from her village, with no chances of ever going back, and almost nonexistent chances of earning some honour in the society she has been cast into, she feels totally lost. There is a vacuum around. Her head is buzzing.

The child is crying. She offers it her empty breasts to suckle for satisfaction. She can barely walk, so cannot afford to waste the last ounces of remaining strength. She has to wind up things. She has to collect the uncrushed tomatoes, then she has to walk back home. She has to see how is her other son. It has to be done as soon as possible.